MARK Drakeford has criticised the UK Government for its “arrogant” and “exploitative” attempt to solve the country’s ongoing fuel crisis by inviting European drivers to work in the country for three months.

Mr Drakeford criticised Number 10 for its temporary visa scheme during First Minister’s Questions at the Senedd on Tuesday, calling it “derisory” and saying it “won’t work”.

Boris Johnson and his Cabinet announced the move last week to allow 5,000 foreign HGV drivers to temporarily move to the UK in order to try to tackle the UK’s mounting supply chain issues.

In response to a question from Conservative MS for South Wales East Laura Anne Jones, Mr Drakeford said: “It is hard to imagine a Government that has made a more derisory attempt to solve a problem of their own creation.

“Of course we are short of HGV drivers because your Government took us out of the European Union where we were previously supplied by drivers.

“The idea that people are going to be willing to uproot themselves and come back to this country for a matter of weeks only to be told by the UK Government they will be discarded again on Christmas Eve when they no longer have a use for them is simply… the arrogance of it is breathtaking.”

Mr Drakeford said 800 people have been retrained as HGV drivers through the Redundancy Action Scheme (ReAct) programme since 2015, claiming the Welsh Government is doing its bit to “grow domestic capacity in that area”.

He added: “That is not going to be a solution for the short-term problems but neither is a scheme that is so exploitative of others that there is no prospect at all that it can deliver what is needed.”

Mr Drakeford also used his speech at the Labour Party conference to rip into Mr Johnson’s Government, receiving a standing ovation after claiming it is “incompetent to its core”.

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